Volume I Part 6 (1/2)
[55] MARIETTE, _Apercu de l'Histoire d'egypte_, p 66
Even thus suh to sho little foundation there is for the opinion which was held by the ancient Greeks, and too long accepted by yptian civilization had come A colony of Ethiopian priests from the island of Meroe in Upper Nubia, had introduced their religion, their written characters, their art and their civil institutions into the country The exact opposite of this is the truth ”It was the Egyptians who advanced up the banks of the Nile to found cities, fortresses, and teyptians who carried their civilization into the ro tribes The error was caused by the fact that at one epoch in the history of Egypt the Ethiopians played an iypt owed its political existence to Ethiopia, we should be able to find in the latter country monuments of a more remote antiquity, and as we descended the Nile, we should find the reh, the study of all these monuments incontestably proves that the sequence of towns, holy places, and toyptians on the banks of their river, follow each other in such chronological order that the oldest reypt, near the southern point of the Delta The nearer our steps take us to the cataracts of Ethiopia, the less ancient do the ns of the decadence of art, of taste, and of the love for beauty Finally, the art of Ethiopia, such as its still existing inality A glance is sufficient to tell us that it represents the degeneracy only of the Egyptian style, that the spirit of Egyptian forenerally ypt_, pp 6 and 7 Maspero's _Histoire ancienne_, p 382, doood idea of this process of degradation h the plates to part v of Lepsius's _Denkmaeler_; plate 6, for example, shohat the caryatid became at Napata
We may condense all these views into a simple and easily remembered fors of the Nile, we descend the current of tier than Meypt worshi+pped, and by which the walls of its cities were bathed, flowed from the centre of Africa, from the south to the north; but the stream of civilization flowed in the other direction, until it was lost in the country of the negro, in the s of this latter streaht in that district where the waters of the Nile, as if tired by their long journey, divide into several ar into the sea; in that district near theshadows of the Pyrayptian Society--Influence of that Constitution upon Monu sequence of centuries which we have divided into three great periods, the national centre of gravity was more than once displaced The capital was at one tiypt, at another in Upper, and at a third period in Lower Egypt, in accordance with its political necessities At one period the nation had nothing to fear from external enemies, at others it had to turn a bold front to Asia or Ethiopia At various tin foes; to the shepherd invaders, to the kings of assyria and Persia, to the princes of Ethiopia, and finally to Alexander, to whoain to recover it And yet it appears that the character and social condition of the race never underwent any great change At the tiypt was the most absolute monarchy that ever existed, and so she remained till her final conquest
”Successor and descendant of the deities who once reigned over the valley of the Nile, the king was the living manifestation and incarnation of God: child of the sun (_Se Ra_), as he took care to proclaim whenever he wrote his name, the blood of the Gods flowed in his veins and assured to hin power”[57] He was _the priest_ above all others Such a fore sacerdotal class, each member of which had his own special function in the coeous cere alone, at least in the principal teht to enter the sanctuary and to open the door of the kind of chapel in which the symbolical representation of the divinity was kept; he alone saw the God face to face, and spoke to hinity of this priestly office did not, however, prevent the king froenerally The army of scribes and various functionaries, whose titles may still be read upon the most ancient monuments of the country, depended upon him for their orders from one end of the country to the other, and in war, it was he who led the serried battalions of the Egyptian ar was thus a supreme pontif, the immediate chief of all civil and military officers; and, as the people believed that his career was directed by the Gods hom he held converse, he became to them a visible deity and, in the words of an inscription, ”the representative of Ra aun on earth, was completed and rendered perpetual in another life All the dead Pharaohs becayptian pantheon obtained a new deity at the death of each sovereign The deceased Pharaohs thus constituted a series of Gods to whon would of course address hi to ask; hence theworshi+p to their predecessors[59]
[57] MASPERO, _Histoire ancienne_, p 58 This affiliation of the king to the God was ure of speech In an inscription which is reproduced both at Ipsamboul and at Medinet-Abou, Ptah isterms of Rameses II and Rameses III respectively: ”I aotten thee; all thy members are divine; when I approached thy royal mother I took upon me the form of the sacred ram of Mendes” (line 3rd) This curious text has lately been interpreted by E Naville (_Society of Biblical Archaeology_, vol vii pp 119-138) The monarchy of the Incas was founded upon an almost identical belief
[58] See the account of the visit to Heliopolis of the conquering Ethiopian, Piankhi-Mer-Amen; we shall quote the text of this fayptian temple
[59] FR LENORMANT, _Manuel d'Histoire ancienne_, t 1, pp
485-486 The most celebrated of these is the famous _Chamber of Ancestors_ from Karnak, which is now preserved in the _Bibliotheque Nationale_ at Paris
[Illustration: FIG 13--Seti I in his War-Chariot, bas-relief at Thebes (Champollion, pl 297)]
[Illustration: FIG 14--Rameses II in adoration before Seti Froe which such a theory of royalty was calculated to give to the Egyptian kings ined They obtained more than respect; they were the objects of adoration, of idolatry Brought up froious veneration, to which their hereditary qualities also inclined theyptians, without any atteainst the royal authority or even to dispute it Ancient Egypt, like its modern descendant, was now and then the scene of enerally provoked by the presence of foreign mercenaries, sometimes by their want of discipline and licence, sometimes by the jealousy which they inspired in the native soldiery; but never, from the time of Menes to that of Tewfik-Pacha, has the civil population, whether of the town or of the fields, shown any desire to obtain the slightest guarantee for e should call their rights and liberties During all those thousands of years not the faintest trace is to be discovered of that spirit fro the republican constitutions of Greece and ancient Italy, a spirit which, in yet later tiovernyptian labourer or artisan never dreaht be master for the tile man--such was the constant and instinctive national habit, and by it every s alike, was regulated
From the construction of the pyra of a new canal between the two seas under Nekau, to the Mahmoudieh canal of Mehee of the Nile, the onlythe necessary labour was coovernor, who has it proclaihout his province; next day the whole male population is driven, like a troop of sheep, to the workshops Eachor basket which holds his provisions for a fortnight or a arlic, and _Egyptian beans_, as the Greeks called the species of almond which is contained in the fruit of the lotus Old orous and skilful aranite or limestone; the weakest were useful for the transport of the rubbish to a distance, for carrying clay and water fro the bricks in the sun so that they reat hunts which took place in the Delta and the Fayoum were procured in the sa the favourite pleasures of the kings and the great lords See MASPERO, _Le Papyrus Mallet_, p 58 (in _Recueil de Travaux_, etc t 1)
[Illustration: FIG 15--Hoe to Amenophis III (From Prisse[61])]
[61] The work to which we here refer is the _Histoire de l'Art egyptien d'apres les Monuments_, 2 vols folio Arthus Bertrand, 1878 As the plates are not nuenerally
Under the stimulus of the rod, this multitude worked well and obediently under the directions of the architect's foreman and of skilled artisans ere permanently employed upon the work; they did all that could be done by men without special education At the end of a certain period they were relieved by fresh levies from another province, and all who had not succumbed to the hard and continuous work, returned to their own places Those who died were buried in hasty graves dug in the sands of the desert by the natives of their own village
The yptian monuments is only to be explained by this levy _en s of the ancient empire, at least, were unable to dispose of those prisoners of war captured in s, and apparently employed by them in the construction of Nineveh Now, it is iun and finished in the course of a single reign by free and remunerated labour, even if it had the help of nun and the marvellously exact execution of the more ireat ability and skilful workantic works; but the great bulk of the task must have required the collective effort of a whole population; of a population devoting theun, like ants over their subterranean city or bees over their comb
[Illustration: FIG 16--Construction of a Te that history had been silent upon this subject, the architect could easily divine, from these monuments themselves, how they had been constructed Cast your eyes upon the ruins of the Athenian Acropolis; their dimensions will seem to you ss of Egypt and assyria; on the other hand their workhout; it is as exact and perfect in the concealed parts of the structure as in those which were to be visible, in the structural details as in the ornanize at once, that, from its foundation to its completion, the whole as in the hands of artisans who practice had le individual a them had made it a point of honour to acquit his of docile labourers who succeeded each other in the workshops of Me of men who had become qualified by experience for the special work upon which they were ereat majority were men suddenly taken froh, thebut their unskilled labour to bestow To such reat part of the work had perforce to be confided, in order that it ht be complete at the required tiious care in the placing and fixing of ht be fairly expected frouild, could not be ensured Hence the singular inequalities and inconsistences which have been noticed in s; sometimes it is the foundations which are in fault, and, by their sinking, have co;[62] sometimes it is the built up colu of stucco, appear very poor and ht and self-respect, the passionate love for perfection for its own sake, which is characteristic of Greek work at its best time, is not here to be found But this defect was inseparable fros were erected
[62] ”The foundations of the great temple at Abydos, commenced by Seti I and finished by Raenerally ill-balancedwhich has taken place, and the deep fissure which divides the building in the direction of its ypte_, p 59 The same writer speaks of Karnak in a similar strain: ”The Pharaonic temples are built, as a rule, with extreme carelessness The western pylon, for instance, fell because it was hollohich made the inclination of the walls a source of weakness instead of strength”--_Itineraire_, p 179
[Illustration: FIG 17--Columns in the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak]
[Illustration: FIGS 18, 19--Scribes registering the yield of the harvest Froh Drawn by Bourgoin)]